Annie Hoey (Labour) | Oireachtas source

Hopefully, I will be forgiven for remaining seated. I am not able to stand for long periods at the moment, so I will be doing something that feels very unnatural.

I welcome the debate and the introduction of the Bill to amend Article 41, particularly related to the current sexist language within it, which refers to women having a life within the home and mothers having duties in the home. Many people, although not everyone, will agree that Article 41.2 is outdated, anachronistic and sexist. It is based on gender stereotypes that should have no place in a contemporary constitutional text. We should not confine women and mothers to lives and duties within the home and not refer at all to fathers having a role or responsibility in the home. This amendment seeks to delete, change or replace that language with different text, which is welcome.

It was said in the Lower House that we in the Labour Party are supportive of the aim behind the Government’s proposal but we would have liked to see a way to delete the sexist language while also ensuring there is meaningful recognition of care both within and outside the home, on which there is an amendment that we will discuss tomorrow. The citizens’ assembly took a strong view that the sexist language relating to women and mothers should indeed be deleted but replaced with a recognition of the role of care, and that care should be recognised and valued both within the home and the wider community.

The Joint Committee on Gender Equality took that up and explored it. There was pretty extensive engagement with carers, women’s groups and groups representing disabled people. This has all been said in the Lower House by my Labour Party colleagues, but I feel there was cross-party support for wording that they regarded as effective in expressing the wishes of the citizens’ assembly and ensuring that we would have a meaningful recognition of care in the Constitution for the first time on a gender-neutral basis that would recognise both care within and outside the home.

We feel the proposed wording falls a bit short of what both the citizens’ assembly and the Joint Committee on Gender Equality recommended. One of the ways is with respect to care being care being less expansive; we feel it is more restrictive. The Government’s definition would confine constitutionally recognised care to that provided by members of a family to one another by reason of the bond that exists among them. We would have liked to see a more meaningful recognition of care within and outside the home and family. I have spoken in the House previously about my own experiences with and thoughts on care, how I believe our system needs to change and how we are not in any way where we need to be with regard to what we provide for carers. Therefore, by default, we are letting down the people we have cared for.

Some important points have been made. When we are discussing care and the individuals providing it, it is important to acknowledge that the care is being provided because ultimately we believe the individuals receiving the care have a right to live a life of dignity, to live a life as wholly and fully as possible and to be able to participate in society in every way possible. Throughout this debate, there will be two different sides to that. I admit that I am concerned about some of the stuff I have seen online such as, “This does not affect me”, or, “This will not bother me”. Words do have meaning and we would like to have seen a broader meaning, particularly with regard to care.

It is important when we discuss this to note that according to census 2022, there were 299,128 providing regular, unpaid care. If I have my calculations correct, that figure has increased by 50% since 2016. That is a whole category of people and it is a big number. More than 200,000 provide unpaid care and are possibly sliding in under the radar or possibly are not falling in under any potential recognition. People possibly do not even know they are providing that care. Since I have been talking about care, people have told me that no one even knows the work they do and the care they are providing. It might be helpful for Government to be able to tell those people how this constitutional change may positively affect them because I am hopeful this will be a positive change.

I will not go on and on about the fact that we want the recognition of caring both within and outside the home, but that could have been a radical move by Government and something beyond progressive, pushing the envelope and recognising there are now more than 200,000 carers in this country who could benefit in all sorts of different ways from the wording the proposal. I am interested in how the Government will enact this perhaps progressive realisation of stronger support for care both within and outside the home. What measures might come out of this constitutional change? Is it through policy or legislation? How is it different from what we are currently doing? It would be important for Government to do that to build the support as we go forward into this.

The citizens’ assembly report placed immense value on care and it made important recommendations on how State support for carers and those receiving care could be strengthened. The Joint Committee on Gender Equality, which was chaired by my colleague, Deputy Bacik, proposed an action plan for Government with a timeframe as to how the citizens’ assembly recommendations could be implemented to provide a stronger provision for childcare and care for disabled people, care that would also recognise agency and enable independent living, care for older persons, better provision of pay for carers and all so on. That would be an important piece of this because I fear this conversation will perhaps run away from everyone and become, as these things sometime happen with referendums, about something it is not.

It strikes me. I am not a constitutional expert, nor am I a referendum expert, but it is quite unusual, if I recall correctly, to have a referendum that does not, for example, come with a heads of Bill, what this would look like or how this will meaningfully affect people. Therefore, there is a body of work to be done in that regard.

We already know that carers are unsung heroes. We talked about them through Covid-19 and all of those other things. As I said, I will not go around and around on this.

The second thing that I feel the Government is falling short on with respect to the citizens’ assembly and the Oireachtas committee is the wording of “striving” to provide such provision. The committee stated, "The State shall, therefore, take reasonable measures to support care". One wording is slightly stronger than the other. I am not particularly gung-ho about “strive to”. I do not know that it holds the Government to anything, either legally or constitutionally.I have heard some people describe it as nebulous and say that it does not place the State under any obligation to provide such supports. People "strive" to do lots of things, particularly in January. I am therefore not sure whether that word has much meaning or if it places any enforceable obligation on the State to provide supports. We would like to see care and receiving care, including outside the family home, put in as a right. That would chime particularly well with the people and, perhaps, send a very strong signal to the 200,000 people who provide care and those who have to receive care about the progressiveness of this Government and wanting to effect meaningful change.

I am reflecting on this referendum. It strikes me that we are restricting the concept of care. Perhaps we are not doing so fully, but it feels a bit like this conversation will be about restricting the concept of care in the home. We do not really think of care like that any more. No one thinks of care in a modern world or society as just something that is provided between family members, so that may need to be teased out a little more. The separation of what we mean by care and who receives it, who gives it and who is and is not recognised by the State might be something for the Government to consider as we go on with this over the coming weeks.

I will end on this thought. The Government does not need the imprimaturof the Constitution to improve care in Ireland. We do not need the Constitution to ensure stronger provision of childcare. We do not need the Constitution for stronger provision of care for disabled people. We do not need the Constitution to tell us that we need to provide better care for older persons. We very much do not need the Constitution now to tell us that we need to provide better care and conditions for carers, both within and outside the home. All of that can be done without this referendum and, therefore, while we welcome taking the sexist, outdated language out of the Constitution, and everything, including the Constitution, should be a feminist piece of work, there are lots of things that can and should be changed that do not require this referendum to do so.